Altcoins Drop After Week of Gains, Bitcoin Stable Near $6,500

After a week of massive gains for multiple altcoins, the market surge has now cooled off and many are trading down over 2%. Just as the market surge was led primarily by Ripple (XRP) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), they have also been the worst affected by today’s drop.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading just below $6,500 at its current price of $6,460. Although it fell slightly (just over 1%) from yesterday’s levels, it is still firmly in the middle of its long-established trading range between $6,200 and $6,700.

Investors should note that BTC’s proven level of support is in the $6,200 region, as its price has bounced multiple times when bears push it into the bottom of its trading range. Its resistance point that bulls must break decisively in order for further highs to be discussed is likely in the $6,700 region, as that is where BTC has historically been rejected while trading in the aforementioned range.

Altcoins Trading Down After Weeks of Bullish Volatility

During Bitcoin’s long period of sideways trading, altcoins have seen some decent levels of volatility, mainly being led by XRP and BCH.

Over the past week, these two cryptocurrencies have been the best performers, trading up 11% and 40% respectively from their weekly lows. Despite having a good week, they have also been today’s worst performers, with XRP trading down nearly 6% on the day, and BCH trading down 4.5% in 24 hours.

XRP’s recent price rise has likely been the result of a new round of swirling Coinbase listing rumors, which, although largely baseless, typically arise during periods of high buying activity.

Bitcoin Cash’s meteoric rise has been the result of its upcoming hard fork event, which is scheduled to occur on November 15th. This event will reward BCH holders with free tokens, which is the main factor behind its massive price rise.

Recently, cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex announced that they would be adding support for pre-fork trading ahead of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork.

Analyst Explains That Multiple Altcoins Have Reversed Downtrends

Despite seeing a pullback today, one prominent analyst explained that many altcoins have actually reversed their downtrends that have been in place since earlier this year.

“After pullbacks to the lower end of narrow trading ranges last week, a growing number of ALTs [altcoins] bounced back to reverse downtrends that have been in place since the April-May highs and in some cases since the beginning of 2018,” Robert Sluymer, a technical strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, explained while speaking to MarketWatch.

Over the next few days, it will become increasingly clear whether or not the recent volatility was simply a temporary movement, or if it signals a larger end-of-year trend.